Music of Changes
Composed in 1951 for pianist and friend David Tudor, it is a ground-breaking piece of indeterminate music.
The process of composition involved applying decisions made using the I Ching, a Chinese classic text that is commonly used as a divination system.
Music of Changes was the second work Cage composed to be fully indeterminate in some sense (the first is Imaginary Landscape No.
It is very likely that Cowell came to the conclusion that Cage had not freed himself from his personal tastes because the individual elements of the work (notes, chords, sound complexes, etc.)
The piece is dedicated to David Tudor, a pianist and friend with whom Cage would have a lifelong association.
"[2] Music of Changes was premièred in its complete form by Tudor on 1 January 1952 (although the pianist had played Book I in public earlier, on 5 July 1951).
[6] Cage also composed several "spin-offs" of Music of Changes, shorter pieces using the same methods and even the same charts.
Cage used a heavily modified version of his chart system (previously used in Concerto for prepared piano).
Various other alterations to standard notation are used to indicate unconventional performance techniques: some notes are depressed but not sounded, some are played on the strings rather than the keys, occasionally the pianist hits various parts of the instrument with specially provided beaters, or snaps the lid to produce a sharp percussive sound.
Cage remarks in the foreword to the score that in many places "the notation is irrational; in such instances the performer is to employ his own discretion.
